


Inferno

by beyondthesea



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Horror Sequences, Internalized Homophobia, closure for lots of characters who never got it on screen, dante's inferno
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-06 16:06:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8759785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondthesea/pseuds/beyondthesea
Summary: When Hook's plan to snuff out the light results in Regina being dragged unconscious to the Underworld, Emma and Snow embark on a perilous journey through the nine circles of hell to find Regina and return her to the realm of the living.Replaces 5x11 and 5B





	1. Darkness Falls

**Author's Note:**

> I know they wanted to do Hercules, but that concept of the Underworld feels like a serious missed opportunity. Like the entire rest of the show to be honest.

A silence falls over Storybrooke as the Dark Ones rises from the depths of the placid lake. It is not the calm silence of a sleepy town in Maine on an ordinary evening in late autumn. It is eerie and it makes the hair on the back of Emma’s neck stand up. 

It suddenly feels much cooler, like a sudden gust of wind, except that the night is completely still. Emma turns around to ask Henry if he felt it too, but he is still standing against the back bumper of her car looking down the street. 

“Henry, what is it?” 

She backtracks to stand beside him, and then she sees. A thick, milky fog is creeping toward them, blocking the view of the road where it turns into the woods. It almost looks alive. 

“I think…” Henry squints, “there are people in there.”

“There can’t be,” Emma replies but she squints at it too. If they are about to relive some 1980s horror movie—which she would only ever consider a serious possibility in this town—she at least wants to see the ghost pirates before they kill her. 

“Don’t you see all those shadows?” Henry asks. “They look like they’re wearing cloaks or capes or something.”

“Dark Ones…” Emma murmurs as realization washes over her. This is Hook’s plan. This is why he needed Excalibur. It makes sense to her now. “Henry, they’re Dark Ones. Come on, get inside.” 

She grabs Henry by the sleeve of his sweatshirt and drags him toward Granny’s Diner.

“Mom, I can help!” he protests as she shoves him through the door and slams it shut. 

“Not this time!” she calls to him through the glass. “Stay in there! Lock the back door! I mean it, Henry! I swear if I see you out here…” she trails off. “If there’s only one time in your life that you do what I say, it needs to be now! I have to go find Regina!”

She glances over her shoulder as she takes off down the street, just to make sure the door is still tightly shut. She cannot see Henry. He is probably halfway to the back door already. She rounds the corner at the library, her feet almost sliding out from under her, and then she hears Regina’s voice. 

“Emma!” 

How that woman runs at full speed in those heels will never fail to impress Emma. Her jacket flaps and Robin jogs behind her clutching a bow that Emma is sure will be absolutely useless against the mob of Dark Ones rolling into town with the fog. 

Regina slows to a stop. “Did you feel the temperature drop?” she pants. 

“Did you see the fog coming up the street?” Emma responds. 

Regina straightens up and adjusts her jacket. “Whatever the pirate summoned, it’s here now.”

“It’s the Dark Ones,” Emma informs her. “All of them. Henry and I saw them. He must have used Excalibur to summon them from the Underworld somehow.”

“Henry!” Regina’s eyes widen and she is looking around frantically. “Where’s Henry?”

“He’s fine, I locked him in Granny’s,” Emma reassures her. 

“Yes, if he’s still there,” Regina mutters. “So what do you suggest we do about your boyfriend’s little family reunion?” 

_Boyfriend_. The word has never sounded quite right coming out of Regina’s mouth, and now it is accompanied by an incredible feeling of regret and uncertainty, like a plastic bag has just been pulled from her head but now that it’s gone, she feels exposed, even though it was suffocating her. Emma wants to correct her, but as Regina ventures down the street toward Granny’s to get a closer look at the fog inching toward them, Emma decides they have bigger problems to worry about.

“You’re asking me?” Emma replies as she joins her. “You know more about magic.”

“Yes, but you’re the one with all the knowledge of the Dark One.” Regina’s tone is dry, and Emma gets the feeling she is just managing not to roll her eyes.

“I don’t know.” Emma shrugs, and Regina sighs. “Are they even alive? Can we even hit them with magic?”

This time Regina does roll her eyes. “For goodness sake, they’re not _ghosts_ , Emma.”

“I don’t know, you kill the Dark One by stabbing then with the dagger, right?” She is speaking faster now, her voice gaining a panicked edge. 

“They’ve already been stabbed,” Regina points out. “That’s why they’re all dead. You’re suggesting we, what, double kill them?”

Emma crosses her arms triumphantly. “So they _are_ ghosts.”

Regina groans. “In a manner of speaking, I supposed. Though I’m sure our son would point out that dead does not necessarily equal ghost. You’re a child.”

“Well, they came to Storybrooke at night.” Emma furrows her brow so tightly it hurts. “And they represent darkness… so what if we hit them with light?”

“Light light or light magic?” Regina asks, but she sounds impressed.

“Uhh, let’s try both?” 

“The street lamps?” Regina asks her. Emma nods and they take their stances, the two of them as a team again. Emma missed this when she was pushing everyone away. Something deep in her gut had ached every time she had faced a problem she knew Regina would have been able to solve. It’s natural, she thinks. They’re friends. 

“One, two,” Regina’s voice pulls her out of her head, “three!”

Emma focuses her magic on the street lamp nearest her, and then the second. Her brain barely registers Robin’s shout of, “It’s working!” from somewhere behind her. She’d forgotten he was even here.

In the distance, the fog parts like a curtain right down the middle and creeps towards the alleyways between the buildings, into the shadows, but it is still coming at them. Emma can see the hooded figures reforming where the light can’t reach them. 

“Emma, use your light magic!” she hears Regina call. 

Emma focuses again on the figure she can see most clearly. It is shaped like a woman and it lurks under the cover of a porch. She hurls a ball of magic at it, but something is wrong. Her magic is not the clear white she is used to, but the sickly yellow she remembers from Camelot, from when she let Violet’s horse go shortly after their return. Of course, she realizes. She is still a Dark One. 

“I can’t cast light magic!” she calls to Regina. “It’s up to you!” She turns toward her, and her eyes widen in horror. 

Emma feels like she is watching it happen in a movie. A hooded figure is standing right behind Regina. She is too preoccupied with shooting beams of light magic to realize that she is slowly being enveloped in fog.  
Emma’s mind whirs to life, trying to put the pieces together, but her thoughts seem to come to her in slow motion. Regina’s shadow stretched behind her like the train of a dress, touching the shadow of Emma’s bug, touching the shadow of the mailbox in front of Granny’s, touching the shadow of the bushes. 

“Regina!” She calls, powerless to do anything else. Regina’s head begins to turn toward her, her eyes glinting, her lips stretched into a wide, almost maniacal smile. 

And then the figure touches her shoulder and her body goes rigid, like she is frozen solid from the inside. Suddenly, time shifts from moving very slowly to very fast. Emma blasts a ball of magic at it and then realizes all over again that it has no effect. She shoots for a lamp post instead. The light around the figure grows and at first it begins to fade, but it shrinks into the bushes, pulling a lifeless and very grey Regina with it. 

Just like that, the fog is withdrawing. The former Dark Ones dissolve into the cool night air. The bushes where Emma last saw Regina rustle. Emma runs toward them, but she knows before she reaches them that Regina will no longer be there. 

She straightens up and turns back down the street, to where Robin is jogging toward her. She can tell by the look on his face that he knows too. Regina is gone.

* * *

“This is my fault,” Emma mutters, not for the first time. She is leaning heavily on a table at Granny’s, her face buried in her hands. “If I had just let Killian die—”

Snow’s arm is around her shoulders in an instant. “No, it’s not,” she assures her. “You were saving someone you loved. _He_ chose to go dark. He could have fought it like you did.  
None of this is your fault.”

“He told me he wouldn’t be able to resist the darkness,” Emma murmurs. “I should have believed him. He begged me to let him die. I just… couldn’t.”

“Emma, you can’t blame yourself for this—”

“Yes, she can.”  
Emma looks up from her hands. Henry is sitting at the end of the counter leaning against the wall. His jaw is set and his eyes are glistening but his cheeks are dry. Emma remembers the ten year old boy who showed up at her door in Boston, the boy who looked at her like she could perform miracles. This Henry looks at her with the sting of betrayal in his eyes. She hates what she has put him through. What she has put all of them through. 

“Henry!” Snow gasps, but his expression is unfaltering.

“You’ve been telling us you only pretended to go dark in Camelot, but you ignored his dying wish because you were selfish, and now my mom is gone.” His frown cuts into her almost as much as his words. “That’s not what a savior does.”

“I’m not the savior anymore,” Emma mumbles. “I told all of you that. There is no savior now.”

“Yes, there was,” Snow replies slowly, like she’s not sure she should say anything at all. “Regina was the savior.”

David hops off his bar stool and Emma can see his mind working. “That must be why they took her.”

“Killian said his plan was to snuff out the light,” Emma adds. “Do you think he meant he wanted to—” Emma breaks off and the room goes silent. None of them want to complete that sentence. 

“Kill the savior,” Henry finally finishes. His voice cracks on the last word and he turns away from her and charges out the back of the dining room toward the back door.  
Emma sighs. “I’ll go talk to him.” She scoots her wobbly chair away from the table and stands up. She is still shaking. 

“He’s just upset about Regina,” Snow tells her, her hand covering Emma’s. “Don’t take it personally.”

“I know,” Emma replies. “But he wasn’t wrong.”

She takes the cup of coffee that has been too cold to drink for at least ten minutes and shuffles through the dining room, past the jukebox she has never seen anyone play, and down the narrow hallway that leads to the door. 

Henry is sitting on the back step, and when he hears the door open, he wipes hastily at his eyes with his shirt sleeve. Emma sits down next to him and places the cup beside her. “I know I did this,” she tells him. 

He doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t say a word.

She sighs. “When Killian was dying… I don’t know, my mind went blank. All I could think about was how he was going to die and it was going to be my fault and how I wouldn’t… have anyone. 

“You would have had people,” Henry mutters.

“Well, yeah, but it’s not the same.” Emma cannot explain how it’s not exactly. It’s not the romance or the sex she feels like she needs. If it was, she wouldn’t have dragged her feet at every stage of their relationship. But Hook had been familiar. They joked around, they had fun together, and he made her family happy. He made her feel like she could have the life she always imagined, like the ones she saw on television growing up. She’d never thought that kind of normalcy would be possible for her before. Now she just feels the nagging uncertainty. 

“Yeah, but now you have even fewer people,” Henry points out.

“I know, kid.” She wants to wrap her arm around his shoulders, but she doesn’t think she could take it if he pulled away from her. “I lost her too. She was special to me too.” As a mentor, her mind rushes to add. As a friend. “I’m going to fix this.”

“How?” he asks, and she can hear the tears in his voice. It breaks her heart. “They took her to the Underworld, Mom. She’s gone. She’s not coming back. Dead is dead.”

“No, there’s a way,” Emma answers, her resolve hardening. “I’m the Dark One. There has to be a way.”

“You think?” He still sounds wary, like he doesn’t want to get his hopes up but he is allowing himself to reach, just with one arm, towards the possibility. He has the heart of the truest believer and even he is skeptical. He is growing up.

“I promise.” There is so much ferocity in her voice, she nearly believes it herself. 

No, she does believe it. Regina Mills is not dead. Emma has magic. She can travel through realms, through time. She has watched her parents meet. There is a way to fix this. Regina Mills is not dead.

She stands up and shoves her hands into her pockets. “I have to go talk to someone,” she tells him. “David and Mary Margaret are still inside. They’ll take you home when you’re ready. Don’t… don’t stay out here too long, okay?”

She takes one last look at him and decides he is going to be okay. Well, he _isn’t_ okay, but he is handling it, and as much as Emma wants to stay with him, time is not something she can spare right now. The longer she waits, the more likely it is that Regina is…

“I love you, Henry. You know that right?”

He looks up at her. His cheeks are damp and he is not smiling, but it is progress. “Yeah, Mom. I know.”

* * *

The pawn shop is silent when Emma steps over the threshold, and for a moment, she thinks Rumplestiltskin might not even be there. Then, with a flutter of the curtain that divides the shop from the back room, he appears. 

“Ah, Miss Swan.” He comes to a stop at the center of the counter. He is studying her carefully, without the amusement he gleaned from making people uncomfortable when he was the Dark One. “You haven’t come to return Excalibur, I see.”

Emma shakes her head. “I lost it. Killian has it. It was… stupid.”

“I thought as much when I saw your little family reunion outside my shop earlier. One of your friends even tried to take refuge in my back room. While I admire your quick thinking, streetlights?” He shakes his head. “You’re the Dark One, dearie. You’re better than those parlor tricks.”  
He reaches into the glass cabinet and plucks out an ornate golden goblet. He rubs as it with his thumb and then reaches back down and produces a rag. “What brings you back here so soon?”

Emma approaches the counter. “They took Regina. They took her to the Underworld. There has to be a way to get her back. You were the Dark One for hundreds of years. If there’s anyone who knows a way…” She does not like how desperate she sounds, and she especially doesn’t like that it reflects how desperate she is, but for once, Rumplestiltskin does not comment on that.

“You thought it would be me,” he finishes her sentence. He looks down at the goblet he is polishing and then back up at her. “Did you know this very cup is at the root of all your problems? And mine too.” He holds it up to the light and nods, satisfied with his work. “This was the original source of magic in the realms. Of course, it can’t help you now. You already have immortality.” He replaces it in the case and straightens back up to look at her. “You’re right, there is a way.”

Emma inhales sharply. “There is?” 

“The Dark One has power over death,” Rumplestiltskin tells her. “You can take the lives of others at will, but you evade death yourself. You can also go into the Underworld. All you have to do is summon the ferryman. He’ll lead you there.”

Emma narrows her eyes. “If it’s so easy, why did you just let Neal die? Why didn’t you save him?”

Rumplestiltskin sighs and shakes his head. He looks tired, and after years of being the man who always had a trick up his sleeve, who always knew more than everyone else in the room, it is disconcerting. “No one said anything about easy. Once you get to the Underworld, it is… difficult to leave. You can’t just go back the way you came. There is only one way out and to get there, you have to pass through… true horrors.”

“And what, you just couldn’t stomach it?” Emma snaps. “Not even for your son?”

“And here I thought we’d established my cowardice long ago,” Rumplestiltskin replies bitterly. “I was never a savior.”

If only people would stop talking about saviors for once. When it was her, it unnerved her. It made her feel inadequate. Now that it’s… now it just devastates her. Emma bites back her retort and shakes her head. “Just tell me how to get there.” 

“That bit is really quite simple,” he explains. “All you need to do is go to the lake and cast a spell. It’s called the Fool’s Errand. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s very powerful magic. Anyone with magical abilities can cast it, but it would be near impossible for anyone else to gather the ingredients.”

“The Fool’s Errand,” Emma repeats. “Got it.” She turns to leave, and then she stops. “You’re not going to try to collect payment from my family after I’m gone.”

Rumplestiltskin simply stares at her, and now Emma knows she is not imagining it. He is tired. “I’ve lost loved ones too, Miss Swan.” 

She nods slowly and turns back toward the door, but his voice stops her. “One last thing.” 

“What?” she asks without turning back around.

“The Underworld is a cruel place, and it does not abide by the rules of magic as you’ve come to know them,” Rumplestiltskin warns her. “Say your goodbyes before you leave.”

* * *

“Emma, you don’t have to do this,” Snow tells her. They are huddled together by the door of Snow’s apartment, their voices hushed so they don’t wake Henry and Neal. “Regina wouldn’t have wanted Henry to lose both of his mothers.”

“Regina didn’t want to be dead,” Emma growls. “I have to do this. It’s my fault she’s down there at all. If it wasn’t for me, she would have kissed Henry goodnight instead of the two of you. I’m going. I have to do this.”

“Then we’re going with you,” David replies. She shouldn’t be surprised to hear this. It’s her parents’ answer to everything, because Emma can never be the only family member in life-threatening peril, but Emma has caused enough destruction.

“No, I won’t let you risk your lives. You need to be here for Neal. And for Henry.”

Robin steps forward. “Well, _I’m_ going. I should be there.”

“You should be _here_ ,” Emma answers. “Your kids are going to think the fairies are their parents if you’re away from them any longer. Look, I’m not going to risk leaving anymore children parentless.”

Snow pulls David aside and Emma watches with narrowed eyes as they have a hushed conversation that might even be an argument.

“I _want_ to come with you,” Robin argues, but Emma is barely listening. “She’s the love of my life. I’ve already lost love once. I won’t lose it again.”

Emma suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m not going to be responsible for orphaning your children,” she replies instead, glancing sidelong toward the bed where Henry is sleeping. “And no offense, but I don’t think your bow and arrow are going to do me much good against whatever the true horrors in the Underworld are anyway.” She wants to tell him that he will only slow her down, that his ridiculous attempts at heroism are likely to get them killed, but she thinks that might be a little callous at a time like this. Even for her.

“Emma,” Snow returns to the group, pulling David behind her. “As your mother, I can’t let you go down there alone. Your father will stay here with Henry and Neal. We’ll go together.”

Her hand feels heavy with guilt on Emma’s shoulder. She shakes her head. “No, you have a baby. You can’t leave him.”

Snow’s hand slips around to Emma’s other shoulder and she hugs Emma to her side. “Neal is not my only child,” she whispers. “You’ve been alone long enough, Emma. I know you think you don’t need anyone else, but it doesn’t have to be like that.” She cups Emma’s cheek with her hand. “You are my daughter, and I’m here for you no matter what.”

Emma’s shoulders droop. Snow has that look in her eyes that she gets when she _knows_ that her intuition is unquestionably right and there is no convincing her otherwise. 

“I need a book from the library,” she mutters, and Snow’s face lights up. “A spell book of advanced magic. The spell I need to cast is called the Fool’s Errand. Get the book from Belle and gather as many of the ingredients as you can get your hands on. Meet me at the lake in an hour.”

Snow nods. “Go say goodbye to Henry. Take all the time you need. I’ll take care of it.”

Emma takes a deep breath and makes her way past the group, toward Snow and David’s bed where she can hear her son snoring. 

“Henry,” she jostles his shoulder. “Henry, wake up. I need to talk to you.” 

The snoring fades and his eyes blink open. “What do you want?” He is tired, still half asleep, but she can already see him curling in on himself, closing himself off to her.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your other mom, Henry,” Emma tells him, already blinking back tears. She takes a deep breath and clenches her jaw. This conversation is going to be much more difficult than she anticipated. “I know it was my fault. I thought…” she sighs. “I thought I could handle Killian. I thought I could fix everything without anyone finding out what I’d done, but I was wrong and Regina paid for it.”

He furrows his brow the way he always does when he is confused, the way he has since Emma first met him. Regina does it too, she realizes. Henry must have gotten it from her. 

“How?”

“Mr. Gold gave me a spell that will get me into the Underwold. I can do that because… I’m the Dark One. Apparently I’m like the master of death or something.” She tries to smile but she just cannot summon the willpower. “I’m going to go get her. I’m going to bring her back. It’ll be okay.”

“Then why do you look like you don’t believe that?” Henry’s voice is small and quiet, like it was when he overheard Emma call him crazy. He sounds defeated. 

She is silent for a long moment while Henry studies her as if he can ascertain the truth if he just looks at her hard enough. “It’s dangerous,” she finally tells him. “The Underworld is apparently a pretty bad place, so I wanted to tell you before I left that I love you and I’m going to do everything I can possibly do to find Regina and bring her back here. I promise.” She feels a tear slip down her cheek. “I just really wanted you to know that.”

Henry sits up, alarmed. “You might not come back? So Mom’s already dead and now you’re might die too?”

“Henry, it’s not like that—” Emma begins, but he throws himself back against the pillow and rolls over so that his face is buried. 

“Why are you being so selfish?”

“I’m not being selfish, Henry. I’m doing this for her and for you. I have to do this for you. It’s what Regina would do too.” She genuinely believes that.

“Just go away,” he mutters.

“Henry,” Emma protests. “Please don’t make me leave like this.”

“Go away!” he repeats, and Emma sighs. She sets a hand on the back of his head and feels him tense.

“I love you, kid,” she tells him. She is crying now but she tries to keep the tears out of her voice. “I’ll find her and we’ll be back by next week. You’ll see.” She presses a kiss to his hair.

He does not look up as she walks away.

* * *

The breeze off the lake is cooler than it was in town. Emma can feel that but it does not make her uncomfortable the way it would have before she was cursed. If she was completely human, she would have shivered and pulled her hat down over her ears. Now she stands as still as Sneezy’s statute, hands clasped comfortably behind her back, her high bun exposing the back of her neck to the wind.

She sees Snow before she hears her. She is wearing that awful pink coat. It has always reminded Emma of a foster home she stayed in when she was eleven. The walls of the Whatleys’ living room were painted puce, and white satin table clothes covered all of the end tables. The husband had been a dentist and the wife, a school nurse. They supposedly had a son, but Emma never met him the entire five months she lived there. Their other foster daughter once told Emma that he didn’t really exist, that Craig Whatley was really just their old cat who got hit by a car and Mrs. Whatley was delusional and Mr. Whatley went along with it because it was easier. By eleven, Emma was too old to believe that, and Heather lied anyway, but after she heard the story, the house seemed just a little more eerie, the creaks and groans just a little louder. 

“I got everything I could find,” Snow tells her. She is hauling a large tote bag with a picture of a pug on it over her shoulder. Emma can see a jar of something that looks like worms poking out. “Some of the ingredients have to come from you.”

“You found the spell?” Emma asks. Looking for a book of Dark One magic, even in Belle’s library, had seemed like a crap shoot. 

“Yep,” Snow reports, smiling cheerfully, as if they are not about to walk into hell. “In a book called _Magick Moste Vile_. I wonder why she would have had that.”

The better question, Emma thinks, is why it was in the library and not hidden in the back of Gold’s or in Regina’s vault, but she pushes those questions to the back of her mind as she moves closer to Snow, who is digging the book out of the bag. She lays it on the grass and flips it open. 

The pages are thick and worn and some of the ink is smudged, but Emma can still read it. Snow flips past a potion that gives a person’s hand the power to remove hearts, a curse that kills a person’s true love using only a lock of their hair, and—Snow’s breath catches before she rushes turn the page—a spell that transfers the darkness from one living vessel into another. Finally they reach the page where, next to a hand-drawn picture of a hooded figure in a rowboat, "The Fool’s Errand" is scrawled in small, spidery letters. 

“That’s not a very encouraging name, is it?” Emma can tell Snow is trying to lighten the mood, but she cannot bring herself to laugh. It would sound hollow anyway.

“Did you bring a cauldron?” Emma asks. “Or… a mixing bowl or something?”

“We don’t need it,” Snow tells her. “Look. You just build a fire and throw the ingredients in.”

“That sounds questionable,” Emma answers, reading and rereading the instruction over her shoulder. “How do you make sure all the ingredients go in?”

“You’re the Dark One.” Snow shrugs. “Magic them in.”

Emma grits her teeth. Now that she has seemingly infinite magic, it is becoming the answer to everything and she hates it. She wants to forget that she is the Dark One about to trek off into the Underworld. For two seconds, she just wants to be Emma trying desperately and in slight exasperation to save Regina, once again. 

But as Snow lays out the ingredients, she spreads her hands and directs them into the flames with as much precision as she can manage, because this is Regina after all, and bringing her back is more important that Emma’s existential crisis at the moment. She is here because of her choices and pretending that the last month didn’t happen is not going to help anyone.

There’s a rat carcass, which Snow shoots a dirty look as she digs out of a Ziploc bag, a pressed lily, the jar of maggots, and what looks like a scoop of rocks. 

“That’s it?” Emma raises her eyebrows. The flames are still the same color, the same shape, the same size.

“No.” Snow looks back at the book. “There are still two more ingredients that I couldn’t get myself. They have to come from you. We need…” she consults the book again, but Emma has a sneaking suspicion that she is stalling. “A tear of grief and anguish and a vile of the Dark One’s blood.”

Emma sighs and crosses her arms. “I wish I’d known that before we left the apartment. I could have gotten it from Henry,” she grumbles. 

Snow places a hand on her arm. “Your tears will work too, Emma. I know you’ve been holding back. Maybe for Henry?” She smiles encouragingly. “But it’s okay to cry here. It might save her life.”

But Emma can’t. She can’t cry about losing Regina because that means accepting that Regina is gone. That means dealing with the mistake she made, really thinking about everything it cost. When she first had the idea, the risk had seemed so small, and then the situation had slipped out of her control so slowly that she hadn’t realized she wasn’t pulling the strings anymore until they were completely out of her reach. She’d thought Hook would at least try to resist like she did. Like Regina would have. 

And then it is happening. She can feel her eyes brimming. The first tear flows down her cheek and Snow, with one hand rubbing her back, tips it into a glass vial. She remembers doing this to Regina in Camelot as she cried over Daniel. It doesn’t feel like it was only days ago. 

“I need something to cut myself with,” Emma demands, wiping her eyes furiously and trying to pretend that her chin is not wobbling. Snow nods and produces a small knife from her pocket. Emma feels a rare rush of gratitude at her for not trying to talk about it. She runs it across her palm and barely feels the sting. She holds the knife over the fire and waits for several drops of blood to fall in. 

Immediately, the warm, orange light fades into a deathly grey that casts stark shadows across their faces and makes them look like skeletons. Snow shivers audibly beside her and Emma realizes that the heat has disappeared, replaced by a cutting chill. 

“Look,” Snow murmurs, nodding out at the lake. In the distance, Emma can see the fog approaching once again, but this time, there is only one figure, a tall, inhumanly thin being, stone still as the boat slides silently across the water without causing a ripple. 

“It’s Charon,” Emma whispers without knowing how she knows this. She turns to Snow. “We have to follow.”

The boat comes to a stop and Emma wades out to meet it. After a moment’s hesitation, Snow sloshes in behind her. 

Finally, when they are close enough to make out dark, dead eyes beneath the hood, Charon turns the boat around and begins to retreat toward the center of the lake. Snow takes Emma’s hand and Emma is surprised to find that she is glad for the comfort as they wade in deep enough that the water touches her chin.


	2. Below the Horizon

When Emma comes to, someone is leaning over her. She can feel their shadow. They are speaking in a whisper and her mind swims trying to make sense of it. She mumbles something that is supposed to be "Mary Margaret" and comes out more like "Mmmmpf Mmmmgt?"

"She's talking."

Then, there is a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. "Emma? Emma, can you hear me?"

She squints up at the person looming over her, willing her eyes to focus. She's a small, plump woman with greying brown hair wearing a heavy necklace. Emma does not recognize her.

And then she remembers where she is.

She sits up with a jolt and her head pounds.

"It's okay." The hand returns to her shoulder, gentler this time. "Take your time."

Emma squeezes her eyes closed and rests her forehead on her fist. "Where's Mary Margaret?" she manages though clenched teeth.

"That's me," she hears someone whisper behind her. There is a shuffling sound and then another voice on her other side. "I'm right here, Emma. We made it. I think you must have just hit your head on something on the way in."

Snow speaks in the slow, motherly tone that has always calmed Emma, even before she knew they were related. She has wondered vaguely if Snow used that tone on people in the Enchanted Forest, if she ever used it to rally troops before battle, or if it is a relic from her twenty-eight years as an elementary school teacher.

"This happens all the time when people come in," the other woman explains over her head. "The journey is easier for some than others."

The silence that follows allows Emma to collect her thoughts for a moment, and then the woman speaks again. "You look exactly the same as the last time I saw you. How long has it been?"

"It must have been… close to thirty-five years now," Snow answers. Emma can tell that she is smiling, and she wants to ask how the two know each other, but her head is still throbbing, and she thinks if she opens her mouth again, she might be sick.

"How is that possible?" There is a slight weight on her back as the woman leans over her toward Snow.

"We were cursed by the Queen. It's a long story."

"And David?"

"He's fine," Snow assures her. "He's back at home. He wanted to come, but we couldn't just leave our son."

The woman gasps. "Oh, you have a son?"

"We do." Emma can practically hear her glowing. "His name is Neal. And we have a daughter."

Snow's fingers weave through Emma's hair and she realizes that her bun must have washed out in the lake. "How are you doing?" she whispers.

Emma swallows and opens her eyes. The light does not sting this time. There is nothing bright to catch her eye and trigger more of the shooting pains. The sky is gray and overcast and the colors are dark, cool tones as far as she can see. She looks at Snow and nods.

"Good," Snow replies. She jerks her chin toward the woman on Emma's other side. "There's someone I want you to meet."

Careful not to move too suddenly this time, Emma turns her head. On her other side, an older woman with deep brown eyes and a sharp, straight, familiar nose is looking at her with a soft expression on her face. "Emma, this is Ruth. She's your grandmother."

"Her grandmother?" Ruth repeats, recoiling looking at Snow. "But she's got to be almost your age."

"It's complicated." Snow dismisses the comment with a hand wave. "Like I said, we were cursed." She turns back to Emma. "This is your father's mother. She died right after our wedding. It's because of her that you were born."

"Okay." Emma blinks. She stares back out over the water and hopes desperately that she is not about to hear some unnecessarily detailed story about a mother-in-law's place in marriage consummation rituals in the Enchanted Forest, but if Snow was planning on telling a story like that, Ruth's next questions stops her.

"But what are the two of you doing here. You must have…"

"Oh, no, we didn't die," Snow assures her. "We're here looking for someone."

"Looking for someone who died?" Emma can hear the confusion in Ruth's voice. "But then how did you get here? Charon only comes for the dead."

"She didn't _die_ ," Emma clarifies, grateful that she can now contribute to the conversation. "She was dragged into the underworld by one of those Dark One ghosts. It was my fault. We're here to save her."

"Dear…" Ruth hesitates. "If she's here, she's dead. There's no saving her. If there was, most of us down here have someone who would have come for us." She smiles at Snow. "I know I do."

"This is different, Ruth," Snow replies gently. She pauses, looks at Emma and then back at Ruth. "Emma can save her. She's… she's the Dark One."

Ruth pulls her hand from Emma's shoulder as if she has been burned. "The Dark One?" she repeats. "David's child? But the two of you are as pure as freshly fallen snow. How did this happen?"

"The darkness was going after—" Emma shakes her head. "You know what? It doesn't matter right now." She turns to Snow. "The longer she's down here, the harder it's going to be to find her."

Snow nods. "You're right." She looks back at Ruth. "We're looking for Regina. The Queen. Has she been through here?"

"The Queen?" Ruth frowns. "The Evil Queen?"

"That's the one," Emma mutters, pressing her hand back against her forehead. The pain feels muffled now, but it's still nauseating.

Ruth shakes her head. "Snow, I don't understand this. You show up down here with a daughter your age and tell me that she's the Dark One and the two of you are trying to rescue the Queen? What in the world has been going on up there?"

"It's really such a long story." Snow tries to smile. "And I'd love to catch up with you, but Emma's right. Regina's a good person. She's not the person we knew in the Enchanted Forest anymore. We came down here to save her because Emma made a mistake that cost her her life, and we need to get her back to her son as soon as possible. Do you know if she's here?"

Ruth considers her for a moment and then studies Emma, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Then, finally, she answers. "She turned up this morning. A group of the townsfolk found her before she woke up. They took her to the jail."

Emma raises her eyebrows. "The underworld has a jail?"

"Of course we have a jail, dear," Ruth tells her. "This isn't heaven."

When Snow pulls Emma to her feet, she wobbles on the uneven stones. "There's a heaven?" she asks weakly, leaning on Snow for support.

Ruth nods. "You can see it from here."

She points toward the tree line, up into the sky. When Emma squints, she can make out a faint yellow light falling through the clouds.

"They say you can get into heaven from there if you can reach it," Ruth tells them as they make their way across the beach, "but you can't get there from this circle, and I'm quite happy right here."

* * *

If the cut on Emma's palm didn't sting from the salt water, she might be able to convince herself that she simply dreamed traveling to the underworld.

They are walking through a town that looks exactly like the one she and Snow left hours ago. There are little differences here and there—a hunting supply store where the pawn shop used to be and Granny's Diner looks like a pizza place—but they are the kind of changes that never seem odd when Emma is dreaming and only occur to her when she wakes up.

Of course, there are all the people she doesn't know walking around town, but that is another matter entirely.

"Let me guess," Emma mutters to Snow out the side of her mouth. "There's a sheriff station right this way?"

"This is eerie," Snow replies, an agreement to a sentiment Emma never voiced but is certainly thinking. "Do you think Regina knew?"

"You tell me," Emma answers. "You're the one who comes from a world with magic. This traversing realms thing is still pretty new to me."

"I haven't traversed realms any more times than you have," Snow reminds her. "None of them looked…"

"Exactly the same?" Emma volunteers.

"Traversing realms?" Ruth sighs. "Sounds like things have gotten more exciting since I've been down here."

The street that they are on is deserted but as they approach the center of town, Emma can hear the dull roar of a crowd.

Coming from the vicinity of where she knows the sheriff's station will be.

At least some things stay the same in every realm.

They round the corner, and Emma sees the crowd immediately. It feels so familiar except that Emma does not recognize any of the faces. And all of that anger is usually aimed at her.

"Alight, alright everyone, calm down." Emma recognizes the voice. It would have been hard to miss. It's not every day she hears an accent like that. "Listen, I understand why you're all upset, but no one is getting through these doors."

"Oh…" Snow sighs. Emma feels her squeeze her bicep. "Graham."

He is standing in the doorway of the sheriff station in one of the vests Emma remembers from the brief time they worked together.

"You know him?" Ruth whispers to Snow.

"Yes, he and Emma dated before he died."

Emma rolls her eyes. "We did not date. He was my boss."

"But you liked him," Snow insists. "It was only a matter of time."

"I didn't—I don't—" Emma presses her fingers to her temple. "I don't know. We didn't know each other that long." He had been nice, but when he'd kissed Emma it had scared her. It was like when Helga took her to that amusement park and they rode the rollercoaster. When they reached the top of the first hill, Emma wondered why she'd even wanted to get on in the first place.

"Snow White?"

Silence falls over the crowd. A man that Emma vaguely recognizes approaches them. "You're dead?"

"Billy! It's so good to see you!" Snow pulls the man into a hug, and then Emma remembers him, the mechanic who started hanging out with Ashley after the curse broke. She hasn't seen him in Storybrooke for months, probably since she and Snow returned from the Enchanted Forest, but it never occurred to her that he might be gone. "No, I'm not dead. I'm here with Emma."

Billy looks over at her in confusion, but Emma is saved from explaining when another person emerges from the crowd.

"Emma? Snow White?"

"Graham!" Snow rushes forward to pull him into another tight hug. When she releases him, his eyes drift over to Emma.

"Graham." She nods and clears her throat.

"You look different," he remarks.

"Yeah." Emma studies the pavement before glancing up at him. "You look exactly the same."

"Yeah, death will do that to a person. Umm," he looks back a Snow, "did I hear right? You're not dead?"

Snow smiles and shakes her head. "No, of course not."

"Thank goodness. What a loss that would have been." Graham furrows his brow. "So what are you doing here? How did you get here? You're not planning on staying."

"We came for Regina," Emma announces.

Graham raises his eyebrows. "For Regina? To punish her? That seems like a bit of overkill doesn't it? She's already dead. We can take it from here."

"No, not… not to _punish_ her." Emma grimaces. "She doesn't need it. She's had enough of that. We came to take her home."

"Take her home?" Billy repeats. "You can't bring back the dead. Everyone knows that, or else we wouldn't all still be here."

"Right." Graham looks between the two of them, his mouth slightly open. "Dead is dead. It's the one thing magic can't fix."

"I can," Emma replies. "I'm—"

"The savior," Snow finishes.

"Let me get this straight. This place is full of good people who lived good lives, who never hurt anyone," a man with dark hair wearing a fur calls from the crowd, "and you've come after all these years to save _her?_ You realize she killed half the people here."

"I know that," Emma answers. "But none of you know her now. She's a good person. She's my son's mother, and she's my… she's my friend."

"You're friend?" Graham exclaims. "She committed murders, mass murders, entire villages. Don't you remember that, Snow? She killed _me_ , and you've just overlooked all that? Do our lives really mean so little to you?"

"No, Graham, they don't," Emma insists. "But Regina means something to me too—because we're friends, and because of Henry—and this was my fault."

Graham takes a step back. "I'm sorry, Emma, but I can't in good conscience help you with this. It already seems unfair that she's here and not in one of the deeper circle. She's staying with us."

"Graham, wait!" Snow calls at his retreating back.

"No." he stops and shakes his head, but he doesn't turn around. "I can't let her walk out of here, not when _we're_ still trapped. She tortured us in life, but at least we're equals in death. I'll make sure of that."

* * *

"He's not wrong," Emma mumbles.

They are sitting in Ruth's kitchen above a hardware store that was the ice cream shop in Storybrooke watching the sun slowly disappear over the horizon. Sunset is different here. The colors are muted, like Emma is seeing them through a screen. _That screen is our world_ , Snow had whispered when Emma made this observation aloud.

"He's not," Snow agrees. "But that doesn't make what we're here to do any less worthwhile. We've seen her grow in the months since those people died. You know she's a different person than she was, and I remember her before she became that at all."

"I know," Emma answers.

Snow covers Emma's hand in her own. "Are you having second thoughts about bringing her back?"

"No," Emma sits up in her chair. "I need to save her, and we've already come this far. It's just that…" Emma sighs, "her life isn't worth more than anyone else's, is it? Why shouldn't anyone else get a second chance just because I wasn't the Dark One when they died and their death didn't make me feel so guilty?"

Snow smiles sadly. "You can't save them all, Emma. Death happens for a reason. People die because it's their time, as much as we don't want them to."

"Yeah, until I tried to meddle with fate," Emma mutters.

"That's the difference," Snow tells her. "That's why you save Regina and no one else. Because it wasn't her time to go."

"It's almost dark," Ruth comments. "We need our plan. We don't want to waste time. The three of you need to be gone when everyone wakes up."

"Right." Emma shakes her head to clear it. "Okay, the cell is in the main room. That means it should be easy to get to, but the sheriff's station has an alarm that will go off if anyone opens any doors or windows."

"What kind of alarm?" Snow asks.

"It'll page Graham," Emma explains. "And we'll be able to hear it. It might wake up the people living nearby."

"So we need a way to bypass the alarm." Snow taps her chin.

"Or we need to get Regina out fast and then run," Emma adds.

"No," Ruth shakes her head. "Quiet is better. Gives you three more time to put some distance between you and them."

Snow turns to Ruth in surprise. "You're helping us?"

"Of course I am." She gives a stiff nod. "After everything you did for my son, you really think I'd let you do this on your own? You really think I'd refuse help to my granddaughter." She looks at Emma fondly for the first time since they arrived. "You really do look just like David."

"Ruth, thank you." Snow reaches for her hand. "We'll never be able to repay you for this. I'm sorry we can't take you with us too."

"Not necessary." Ruth shakes her head. "Now, what's the plan? The more time you have before folks wake up, the better."

"Right, we need a plan." Snow clasps her hands in her lap and looks back at Emma. "How do we get into the sheriff's station without triggering the alarm?"

"You have to have the key. There's a chip in it. And then you turn it off from inside the sheriff's office." Emma sighs and rests her forehead against her knuckles.

"And when does it go off?" Snow presses, as optimistic as ever.

"As soon as a door or a window opens," Emma mutters. "Maybe if we dig up through the floor—"

"Emma, can you still do magic down here?"

Emma looks up. Snow's eyes are wide and excited. She shrugs. "I don't know. I haven't tried." Snow raises her eyebrows, waiting.

Emma holds out her hand and a fire sparks to life. She used to have to concentrate to produce magic, but now she barely has to think about what she wants to do before it happens, like her body knows before she does.

"Perfect!" Snow exclaims. "So you'll just poof in and turn off the alarm, and then you and Regina can walk out the front door."

Emma shakes her head. "What about the keys to the cell? We don't leave those in the station. Graham probably has them with him."

"Don't you have…" Snow trails off, gesturing wildly. "Ice powers or something? Can you freeze the lock?"

"That only happens in movies." Emma rolls her eyes. "But maybe I can pick it. It actually looks like it came out of 1983, unlike everything else in this town."

"You can pick locks?" Snow asks. The look on her face makes Emma feel this she has somehow betrayed her. She forgets sometimes how little Snow knows about her life before she came to Storybrooke.

"Of course I can." She doesn't explain further.

* * *

When Emma walks down the center of Main Street, the silence is eerie. Ruth and Snow trail behind her, and Emma can hear them whisper back and forth. Their voices become more urgent as they approach the sheriff's station. This should be easy—in and out—but Emma's heart is still beating in her ears.

It is hard to believe that Regina is here in this strange place, that Regina is so close. Emma does not allow herself to think about how badly she wants to see her again.

She stops twenty feet from the front door, where she knows the security cameras pick up, and takes a deep breath.

"Emma, don't be afraid to come back if something goes wrong," Snow calls to her, her voice low. "We can always try again tomorrow night."

Emma tunes her out, closes her eyes, and thinks about where she wants to be. She feels her stomach drop, the telltale sign of traveling via magic smoke cloud, and then the air around her is warmer.

"Emma?"

Emma recognizes that voice immediately. Relief washes over her, and she smiles despite herself before she opens her eyes.

Regina is leaning up against the bars of the jail cell. She is still wearing the tan trench coat she was in when Emma saw her disappear into the bushes. Her scarf is gone. It must have come off when she was being dragged, or in the lake maybe. Emma never really liked that scarf—she doesn't like blue and tan together—but the colors really brought out Regina's eyes.

Not that she's given much thought to Regina's eyes. She doesn't even know why she noticed.

"What are you doing here?" Regina asks. "You didn't…"

"No, I didn't die," Emma assures her. "I came to get you out. Mary Margaret's here too."

Regina breathes a sigh of relief, and then she focuses back on Emma. "I have to say, Emma, this has got to be the most irresponsible plan you have ever concocted. You can't just come barreling into the underworld, guns blazing. Have you thought about all the things that could happen to you down here? Have you thought about what would happen to our son? I can't believe your mother went along with this." She pauses. "Actually, I take that back. Your parents are just as foolhardy as you are. Always certain that everything will be okay because what they're doing is _right_ , as if that ever helped anyone."

"Henry is fine. He's with David, and you're welcome, by the way," Emma replies. "Are you going to poof yourself out of there or do I need to look for something to pick the lock?"

Regina rolls her eyes. "If I could do that, do you think I'd still be here? My magic doesn't work down here."

"Okay." Emma sighs. "Okay. I get it. I'm the Dark One. I'm the only one who gets to keep their magic. No big deal." She shakes her head and looks back at Regina. "Have you seen anything long and," Emma gestures with her hands, "thin?"

"Graham keeps a shaving kit in his office." Regina points over Emma's shoulder without taking her hand off the bar.

"Great, I'll go check it out." Emma nods at her and turns toward the office. "You'll be fine here?"

"It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Yeah, yeah." Emma waves over her shoulder as she leaves the room.

Graham's office is unlocked, which is about the only break Emma has caught since this whole Dark One nightmare started.

And the only one she is going to get, apparently. As soon as Emma opens the door, she hears a growl. A pair of yellow eyes glint in the moonlight. She backs away slowly, and then it comes at her.

Her body takes over before she really has time to think about what she's doing. She sprints along the side of the office, her heels slipping on the tile. And then it is out of the office and in the light, and she sees it, dark tangled fur and long, yellow teeth. A wolf that looks like it's the size ofa bear, though Emma will wonder later if it was actually any bigger than Pongo.

"Get rid of it!" Regina is yelling. "Use your magic, Emma!"

Emma waves her hand, but instead of sending the wolf somewhere else, she finds herself inside the cell with Regina. The wolf jumps up against the bars and both of them jump.

"Well, I suppose that takes care of the problem temporarily," Regina mutters.

"Regina, did you know that was in there?"

"Yes," Regina replies. "I thought it would be fun to watch you be mauled instead of actually getting out here."

"It's okay," Emma assures her, though Regina certainly seems calmer than she feels. "I'll just poof us both out of here, and then we'll leave Graham to deal with _that_ in the morning."

She takes Regina's upper arm and closes her eyes. The next moment, her fingers are closing around air.

"Emma?" Snow is approaching her from behind, but before Emma has time to explain, or even to feel confused, she hears a crash and then an alarm.

"That's a wolf!" Snow cries.

"It must be Quinn," Ruth gasps.

Emma doesn't have time to ask who Quinn is because the alarm is still going off, and Regina is still in the cell, and apparently, Emma can't magic her out.

"Regina?" Snow calls. She sounds breathless already. She did just have a baby, Emma remembers.

"She's still in there," Emma calls. Snow and Ruth are moving farther and farther from her, edging toward the forest. The wolf is crouched directly between them, its teeth bared, ready to attack. "I have to get her out of the cell."

"Go!" Snow waves her toward the broken window. "We've got this."

"Don't worry!" Ruth adds. "I'm already dead!"

It is nearly impossible for Emma to leave Snow with the wolf, but lights are beginning to shine through the windows of nearby buildings, and she has to get Regina out. This may not be their last chance, but it is certainly their best.

She pulls herself back through the window. The exact movements she has to make to avoid the glass edges around the window frame are still second nature, though it has been years since she burglarized a building. She runs through the station and back to the office.

"Top drawer!" Regina calls in to her from the cell.

Emma finds a worn leather pouch in the drawer and takes it back out to the main office. "If anyone… or anything… comes up behind me—"

"I know, I know," Regina sighs. "This isn't my first time narrowly avoiding capture."

"You didn't avoid it," Emma points out. "I'm pretty sure they got you." She probes at the inside of the lock and feels it come loose.

"Another skill you learned prison?" Regina asks as the door swings open with the tools still in it.

"Oh, this is from long before prison." Emma backs away. "We need to go. Snow and Ruth ran into the forest with the wolf."

"We should probably join them," Regina comments. "This entire hellhole of a town is probably forming another mob as we speak—about the only thing they're good at—and I think I'd rather deal with a wolf than them."

"Even without your magic?" Emma glances back at Regina before heaving herself through the window.

"Especially without my magic." Regina takes off her trench coat and drapes it carefully over the window sill to climb through.

The streets are no longer silent. Emma can hear doors opening and slamming. She can hear voices, the sound of a vehicle approaching.

"Come on!" Regina is barely through the window, but Emma seizes her arm and pulls her toward the forest.

She doesn't feels the twigs scratching her face as she pulls Regina through the trees. She is concentrating too hard on navigating around exposed roots and holes in the earth. She should have changed her shoes before she left. She misses the boots she wore as sheriff. The stilettos seemed like a better idea when she was trying to project fear and magicking herself everywhere.

By the time she stops running, the lights from the town no longer glint between the trees. The forest is completely silent. When she finally looks back at Regina, she can see small red scratches criss-crossing her cheeks. She own face stings and her sweaty hand is still clasping Regina's arm.

"Are you okay?" Regina asks. She sounds breathless. Emma realizes she is too.

"I don't know where we are," she admits.

Regina straightens her jacket. "Away from them. That's the important thing. Now what? We find Snow and get back to _our_ Storybrooke?"

"Umm, it's not quite that simple." She avoids Regina's eyes, instead studying the leaves covering the forest floor. Her feet ache. She knows she'll find blisters when she finally takes her shoes off. "We can only go forward. We can't go back."

"We can't go back. What does that mean?"

"We have to… you know, journey through the other circle of hell to get back." Emma shrugs. "No big deal. Things always get worse before they get better, right?"

"Emma," Regina crosses her arms incredulously. "Do you have any idea what you've agreed to?"

"Maybe not entirely?" Emma answers. "But I had a pretty good idea what the consequences of not agreeing would be."

"Emma…"

There is a crash to Emma's right that saves her from whatever Regina was about to say.

"Emma?"

"Mary Margaret?"

Snow traipses through the brush, Ruth close behind her. Snow has a long gash down the side of her face and Ruth's left sleeve is nearly ripped off.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Emma asks. She moves to look more closely at Snow's cheek.

"It's fine," Snow assures her.

"No, it's not. I can heal it."

Emma waves her hand. The side of Snow's face is shrouded in yellow smoke, but when it clears, the gash is still there.

"What?"

Emma tries again. Still, nothing happens.

"It didn't work when you tried to use it to get me out of the cell either," Regina points out. "It only worked on you."

"And I couldn't transport the wolf anywhere else either," Emma adds, her brow wrinkled. "My magic only works on me down here."

Snow wrinkles her brow. "Is that possible?"

Emma sighs. "I'm starting to think nothing is impossible anymore." She presses her fingers to her temples and begins to pace. She doesn't regret this decision, especially now that Regina is here, alive, awake, and breathing, at her side, but this feels like some sort of game that's rigged against her.

"It's okay," Snow insists. "We'll just wait until we get out of the forest and patch it up then."

Emma crosses her arms. "Are you sure?"

"Emma," Snow lays a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay. I've been hurt worse than this in the wilderness before. I'll live."

Regina raises her eyebrows. "Ironic."

"They're going to be all over these woods any time now," Ruth comments. "Listen, you three need to go." She points through the trees in the opposite direction from which Emma and Regina came. "You'll find a clearing through there. There's a road that leads into the next circle. They won't go down there. They're all too afraid of being sucked in or something. Anyway, if they think you've gone into the next circle, they'll leave you alone. We don't know what's there, but we know its worse than this."

"Ruth," Snow smiles her. "Thank you so much for everything you've done for us. You didn't have to."

"No," Ruth answers. "But I was happy to." She turns to leave them, but Snow calls after her once more.

"Ruth, wait." She hesitates. "Why aren't you in heaven?"

Ruth smiles and shakes her head. "Heaven is for those who died heroes. Only the very best of us. I was no villain, but I was no hero either." She nods at them. "I'm glad I got to see you again, Snow. Nice to meet you Emma."

Without another word, she is walking back through the trees, her hands in the pockets of her apron.

Snow turns to Regina, and lays a hand on her arm. "It's good to see you again."

The sun is just starting to rise when they come a narrow dirt road. It's still covered in leaves from last autumn and is devoid of tire tracks.

"Does this even count as a road?" Emma asks, eyebrows raised. "It looks more like a trail."

"You're not from our world." Regina pats her on the shoulder, and Emma tries not to think about the way her stomach lurches. She's hungry.

"Any path that you walk on is a road where we're from," Snow adds.

"It's wide enough for a carriage, at least," Regina mutters. "That's more than I can say for half the roads in the Enchanted Forest."

"Oh, but Regina," Snow takes their arms and urges them forward, "There was no need for that. The only people in the Enchanted Forest who had carriages were royalty. They probably kept them narrow to keep you away."

"And that awful Bo Peep woman," Regina adds, contempt staining her voice.

"Right, right," Snow answers. "The only person who can terrorize your subjects is you?"

"Exactly! Someone finally gets it."

"So, what happened when you got here?" Emma asks, changing the subject to what seems like something more neutral because Snow and Regina's relationship can still be rocky at times. "How did they get you locked up?"

"Well, I don't have my magic, so there wasn't much I could do to stop them," Regina answers. "But it helped that I was unconscious when they found me."

"Who found you?" Snow asks. "Graham? He didn't seem too happy about us wanting to take you."

"No," Regina shakes her head. "At least he might have been a little more sympathetic. We did have a relationship."

"A fake one," Emma mutters under her breath.

If Regina hears her, she ignores it. "It was this man, Kurt Flynn. He was from your world," she glances at Emma, "the land without magic. I killed him not long after we arrived in Storybrooke."

"What reason could you have possibly had for that?" Snow exclaims, horrified.

"A good reason," Regina argues. "I wanted his son. Unfortunately he got away, and then he showed back up twenty-five years later with Tamara and that awful torture device—"

"Wait." Emma stops. Her hands shoot out to Snow and Regina's forearms to stop them. "You guys hear that?"

"Hooves. Quick." Snow pulls them off the road and back into the trees.

"How did you—?"

"Shhhh," Snow clamps a hand over Emma's mouth. "I was a fugitive in the forest for half my adolescence, remember? I know what hooves sound like."

"Shhhh," Regina repeats.

Snow removes her hand from Emma's mouth and Emma replaces it with her own to muffle the sound of her breathing as a chocolate brown horse rounds the corner. It trots along leisurely, leaves crunching under its feet. Emma's heart beats in her ears and she wishes the horse would move a little faster.

"Easy, Rocinante," a deep voice urges. "Almost there."

"Rocinante," Emma hears Regina gasp beside her, and then, before Emma has time to react, Regina darts out from the cover of the trees and into the road behind the horse and rider. "Daniel?"

"Daniel?" Snow whispers, her brow pinched together, and then she stands up and follows Regina, pulling Emma with her, despite her confused protests.

The horse rears up and Snow drops Emma's arm to pull Regina away. "Hey, hey!" The man pushes his feet away from the horse and throws his arms around its neck.

"Is he afraid of you?" Snow turns to her in surprise, but Regina simply holds up her hand, her mouth pressed shut.

They take several steps back and wait for the horse to calm down, and then the man climbs off. "Regina?"

"Daniel?"

They throw their arms around each other. Emma feels an unpleasant pinch in her chest, but she forces keeps her face carefully neutral. She and Regina have never hugged. Regina looks like she would be a good hugger.

"Shit," Emma mutters, shaking the thoughts from her head.

"What?" Snow asks. Emma is saved from explaining when Regina pulls away.

"Look at you," Daniel says. "You're so grown up."

"And look at you," Regina replies. "You don't look a day over twenty."

"Yeah," Daniel chuckles. "Forever nineteen. You know, I have to admit that it's nice to never get old. You think I could still ride like this if I was alive?"

Regina shakes her head. "I haven't been on a horse in ages. Oh, Daniel, you remember Snow White. And this is her daughter, Emma."

"Wow, Snow," Daniel reaches out to take her hand. "Last time I saw you, you were barely tall enough to mount a horse by yourself. And Emma," he moves to shake her hand as well. "You look just like your mother. And…" he glances between the two of them and frowns, "just about the same age."

Emma rolls her eyes. "We are."

"We were cursed," Snow waves her hand, repeats the sentence that is becoming a mantra. "You know, it's a really long story."

"Oh." Daniel shakes his head, takes it in stride like only someone from the Enchanted Forest could. He turns to Regina "Your mother's doing?"

Regina's smile tightens. "Mine, actually. I didn't handle your death as well as I might have."

"You're being too hard on yourself," Snow assures her. "It was more than that. Living in the palace, Rumplestiltskin—"

"Enough," Regina interrupts.

"I want to hear all about your life, everything I missed," Daniel says. "Come back to my house, all of you. I'll make you dinner. It's not often I have human company. I'm usually alone with the horses."

"We'd love to—I really, _really_ would—but," Regina's smile disappears, "we're in a hurry."

"How could you possibly be in a hurry?" Daniel asks. "We have all the time in the world down here. How long have you been here? How did you die? I don't go into town much, but we can't have missed each other for long."

"Oh, we're not dead," Emma interrupts. "Regina got dragged down here by some Dark One minions and we came to save her."

"Another long story," Snow adds when Daniel looks to Regina for further explanation. "The point is that Regina… well she's not very popular with everyone here. They locked her in jail when they found her, and we had to break her out, and now we're on the run from the people in town."

Regina lays a hand on Daniel's chest and Emma looks away. "We wouldn't want to get you in trouble."

"Regina, it's not a problem," Daniel assures her. "They're afraid to come out here. It's too close to the next circle. That's why I built my house out here. I like the solitude. You can have dinner, stay the night, we'll patch up that cut," he nods at Snow, "and tomorrow morning, I'll show you where to go. No one will find you. I promise."

"You'd do that for us?" Regina asks, and Daniel takes her hands.

"I would do anything for you, Regina. Don't you remember that?"

* * *

Emma and Snow fall asleep on Daniel's couch right after dinner. Snow assured Regina that she'd taken a nap last night before coming to break her out of jail, and Emma added that she hit her head on the way in, so she shouldn't have slept last night anyway, but Regina suspects they need the rest more than they let on.

"It's strange seeing you in such adequate lighting," Regina comments, "and in front of an electric stove. I can't even imagine you using that microwave."

"It wasn't like this when I first got here," Daniel explains. "The town looked like a village from our world. And then a while ago it just changed into this. I held out on all the technology for a while. I liked the familiarity, and I'm so isolated out here, it wasn't hard to pretend everything was still the same, but eventually I gave in. This electricity thing makes everything so much easier. It's nice to be able to put headphones on for my ride into town, and I love the indoor plumbing."

"It must have changed when the curse hit." Regina sighs. "I didn't realize it would affect other realms. Not that that would have stopped me at the time."

"You must have been in a pretty dark place." His voice is soft, and it makes Regina feel like everything will be okay as long as he keep talking. It reminds her exactly why she fell in love with him.

"I was," she answers. "You died, and then my mother basically traded me to the King in exchange for status, and I never thought I would be able love anyone else way I loved you. I had no reason to think I would ever be happy again. It just felt like…" Regina shrugs, "that was it for me."

Daniel covers her hand with his own. "There was always a part of me that hoped that your mother hadn't gone through with it, that she'd seen how unhappy it was making you and changed her mind. I'm so sorry."

But Regina brushes his apology aside with a shake of her head. "It wasn't your fault. You made me so _happy_ when we were together. Those memories were the only thing I lived off of for years."

"So tell me about the curse," Daniel replies, leaning toward her with interest. "When did you learn magic?"

"After my wedding," Regina answers. "I sought out Rumplestiltskin. I hated my mother for what she did to you. I wanted revenge. I learned enough magic to trap her in another realm, a place called Wonderland that's really much more terrifying than it sounds. I expected it to make me feel better, but I still felt as empty as I did on my wedding day." She wipes at a tear that is threatening to escape her eye. "I… considered ending it. More than once." Daniel squeezes her hand. "But then I had a different idea. There was this genie. I knew he was in love with me. I knew he'd do anything I asked, so I asked him to poison the King instead. I lead him to believe we would be together if the King was out of the way. That's how I became the Evil Queen."

"But if you got revenge on your mother by sending her to another realm, why did you need to cast a curse?" Daniel asks.

"I blamed Snow White for ruining my life," Regina explains. "I know it was foolish now. She was only a child, but so was I, and I guess I never really grew up. I was trapped in a life I didn't want, and I decided that if I couldn't have my happy ending, I didn't want anyone should have theirs either. Especially not her. So I brought everyone to a land without magic and I took away their memories. I designed the town so that no one was happy, and I watched them all lead miserable lives for twenty-eight years," she looks over at Emma, asleep with one arm hanging off the couch so that her knuckles rest against the wood floor, "until that one showed up."

Daniel raises his eyebrows. "And you're friends now? You and Snow White and her daughter?"

"Yes, we're friends," Regina chuckles. "Not that it's been easy, but Emma and I didn't really have a choice. We share a son. He was determined to have her in his life, and I was determined to have him in my life, so we figured out a way to make it work. Though I'll admit there was no shortage of trying to kill each other for the first couple of months."

"You have a son?"

"Yes," Regina nods, smiling. "Henry. Henry Daniel Mills. He's thirteen now. He's smart and compassionate and infuriatingly idealistic. He gets that from Emma's side of the family." Daniel laughs. "I can't believe I'll get to see him again. When I woke up here, I didn't think I ever would."

"Regina, I'm going to ask you a serious question, and I want you to be honest with me." The smile fades from Daniel's face and he fixes her with a serious stare. "I have to know, are you happy?"

It takes a moment for Regina to answer. She hasn't processed her feelings in a while. There hasn't been time for introspection since the curse broke. But now when she thinks about it, the answer is obvious to her.

"You know," she smiles gently. "I am. I'm happier now than I've been since… since I lost you. I have my son and our odd little family. And there's… Robin." She doesn't even know if she should mention him. It feels strange to include him in the same category Emma and Henry and even Snow, like he doesn't fit somehow. He's just tacked on to the end. But it doesn't feel fair to leave him out. "He's got the sweetest little boy and… he loves me."

"Do you love him?" Daniel asks, and there's not a hint of jealousy in his voice.

She sighs. "I love him enough."

"But you're not in love with him," Daniel presses. "It's not true love?"

"It was supposed to be, but it doesn't feel like true love is supposed to feel. It doesn't feel like you did."

"It was supposed to be?" Daniel's eyes glint with amusement.

"Tinkerbell came to me on… one of the other nights I was considering ending things. She used her fairy dust to led us to the man who was supposed to be my true love, and we found Robin," Regina explains.

Daniel laughs good naturedly. "You're dating a man because fairy dust told you too?" He shrugs. "I guess we always were romantics."

"Daniel, you know true love only comes once in a generation, and we had it," Regina tells him. "I can't expect that again. But Robin treats me well. Certainly better than any man has since you. We're happy together when there aren't all sorts of outside forces trying to pull us apart."

"Would you be happier with someone else?"

"Someone alive, you mean?" Regina chuckles. She lets her eyes drift back over to Emma, asleep on the couch under a heavy pelt that Snow pulled over them. She has a troubled look on her face, even in sleep. Regina wonders if that's a feature of her time as the Dark One or of being the savior and carrying the responsibility of an entire town on her shoulders, or if it's from long before they knew each other. She's seen Emma sleep before. In Neverland, they always slept on opposite sides of the campsite.

When she looks back at Daniel, she sees that his gaze has followed hers to Emma, and when their eyes meet again, she knows that he understands. They always were on a plain of consciousness all their own, able to tell what the other was thinking with just a look.

"I haven't told anyone." Regina sighs. "It's nice to have someone else know." It feels like she's just had something heavy lifted off her chest.

"Surely you're going to though," Daniel says. "You're not going to keep quiet and suffer."

"It's what I do best," Regina comments, shaking her head. "She's much too good for me."

"I can't imagine that."

"You don't know the things I've done," Regina murmurs, shaking her head. "I'm not the naïve teenager that I was when you were alive, Daniel. They didn't call me the Evil Queen because they liked the way it sounded." She grimaces and shakes her head. "She's the literal embodiment of light and she deserves someone who can hold a candle to that." She pauses. "And the relationship we have now took a lot of hard work. I'm not going to ruin it because being the happiest I've been in forty-five years isn't enough. I won't put our son through that and I won't lose her."

"But if you love her, you owe it to yourself—"

"I don't owe myself anything," Regina interrupts. "Not after all the lives I've destroyed. I have more than I deserve. Loving someone means wanting what's best for them, even if it's not you."

Daniel's mouth twists into a slight frown, but he meets her eyes and nods. "I understand that."


	3. A Storm in the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for some pretty severe internalized homophobia in this chapter, including a dream sequence that sort of takes things to the extreme.

"Here it is." Daniel stops and gestures down the road. "This is as far as I can take you."

Emma squints into the distance. It just looks like a road. "Where is it?"

"It's right here." He holds his hand up and waves it around in front of them. "You just have to focus. Focus on the light, the way it hits the air."

And them Emma sees it. The stream of light shining through the trees on the side of the road seems to break in midair, the way a straw looks when it is stilling in a cup of water.

"Oh." Emma draws back. "Huh. I never would have noticed."

"I don't blame people for not coming out here," Snow comments. "I can't see anything. You could just walk right through and be trapped."

"Thank you so much for all this Daniel." Regina pulls him into another long hug that Emma pretends to ignore. "We'll see each other again someday."

"Maybe," Daniel replies. "But I have a feeling you'll end up in the better place, with the people who died heroes."

Regina shrugs, but she doesn't respond, and Emma knows that she's thinking about the other place she could end up. Emma wants to tell her that surely the lives she's saved have made up for the ones she's taken. It hurts that she's afraid of this.

"I loved talking to you last night," Regina says. "I've missed you. More than words can express."

"I'm so glad I got to see you again," Daniel tells her. "This way we can have a proper goodbye. And I can tell you that, though I'm deeply sorry about the pain you've felt, I am so proud of how much you've grown."

Regina breathes a harsh sigh. "Don't say that."

They stand there for a long time, holding hands and looking into one another's faces as if they were memorizing them. Maybe they are.

"I have to go," Regina finally murmurs after Emma unsubtly clears her throat. "Goodbye, Daniel."

She takes a step away and join Emma and Snow in front of the barrier.

Emma reaches out toward the sheen of light. Her fingers disappear. It feels like she is reaching through a screen of liquid to something dry on the other side, strange but mesmerizing. When she moves her hand, she finds that she can pull it aside like a curtain. "Okay, you guys ready?"

Regina nods. "Do it."

When Emma pulls the barrier away, none of them move to step through it.

Finally, Snow takes a deep breath. "Okay, I'll go first." Emma can see her shoulders tense as she steels herself, and then she disappears. Regina follows her, and then, before Emma has time to imagine what she will find, she ducks through as well.

The sunlit path through the woods that Emma was looking at only moments ago vanishes. Instead, they are standing on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Waves crash against the rocks below them. A constant, overpowering wind whips raindrops directly into their faces. Emma looks back at the barrier, but it has vanished. When she reaches her hand out, she feels only air and the sting of the rain

"No going back, I guess," Snow comments.

Regina looks out over the rolling waves, holding a hand up to protect her eyes from the rain. Her hair is already plastered to her forehead. "Do you think it keeps going on like that forever?"

"There's no way to know." Emma hunches her shoulders and wraps her arms around herself. "Unless you want to put off getting back to Henry to take a boating trip. I think this is the same beach we washed up on. Come on, the town should be this way."

"I can't wait. I'm sure they'll be even happier to see me here than in that last town," Regina mutters, and Emma makes a mental note to keep her out of sight until they find out who exactly is down here. The last jailbreak was enough to last her a lifetime.

The road is a mud pit. Emma sinks in almost to her ankles. Her shoes are ruined, but she doesn't care. At this point, she never wants to wear them again anyway.

Clouds swirl above them, and every time Emma looks up, she half expects to see a tornado on the horizon. It reminds her of the hurricanes they used to get when she was in Florida. She would take a tornado if it would get them out of here. She's heard horror stories about Oz, but she knows it's better than this.

"This is only the second circle?" Regina calls over the howl of the wind. "How can it get any worse?"

"Look!" Snow cries. "There's a light up ahead! That must be the town!" Emma tries to lift her head to see it, but the wind blows rain into her eyes and she quickly ducks her head again.

"Thank god," Regina replies. "We're about to blow off the face of the earth."

"Or drown," Emma mutters. Regina chuckles darkly, and Emma's heart leaps.

"I think it's Granny's," Snow tells them. "Or… it would be Granny's."

"King's Convenience," Regina reads. "I don't suppose they sell swimwear. Or towels."

Snow nudges Emma in the ribs. "You could use a pair of shoes." She glances at her own feet. "We all could."

"I think they're more likely to sell bubble gum and paper plates and tacky postcards," Emma answers. Then after a moment of consideration, "I guess they might have umbrellas."

"That's something," Regina grumbles, and Emma can't help but find it cute.

Snow is the first inside. When Emma follows her through the doorway, she nearly slips in the puddle of water that has dripped from her clothes.

"Well, that's a relief." Regina shakes her hair dry.

"Oh my god!" Snow exclaims, and Emma and Regina jump. "Look at these magazines! They're awful."

"We're in the underworld," Regina reminds her. "Everything is awful."

Emma peers over Snow's shoulder, but when she sees the image on the cover, she pulls away like she's been burned.

She is smiling tauntingly up at herself from the glossy front cover of the magazine. She can see the burn scar on right side. All she sees is her skin and the skin of the woman over whose shoulders her arms are lazily draped. The other woman's arms are wrapped around her, hands caressing her back. She looks down the aisle, desperate to distract herself, but she is on the cover of every magazine with other women, sometimes more than one, in various stages of undress.

She redirects her eyes to the floor.

Snow glances back at her, misinterprets her reaction. "I know. How could anyone do something like this?"

"Don't _you_ know how?" Regina asks her, one eyebrow raised. Snow smacks Regina's arm with the back of her hand.

"We were cursed!"

Regina furrows her brow and tilts her head, confused, but before she can press further, a bearded, balding man rounds the corner.

"Snow?"

Snow looks up from the magazine. It takes her a moment to react, but then she breaks into a radiant smile. "Father!"

The magazine falls to the floor as Snow runs to him and throws her arms around his neck. The man brings his hands to her back carefully, as if he is afraid she might disappear at any moment. "I thought I heard your voice."

"How long has it been?" Snow murmurs into his shoulder.

"You tell me," he answers. "We have no sense of time down here." He pauses, his smile fading. "Snow, what are you doing here?"

"We're trying to get back," Snow explains. "We just came through from the first circle. We have to go all the way down to get back to our world."

He lets out a deep breath. "You mean you weren't sentenced here for eternity?"

Snow shakes her head. "No, of course not." Then she stops abruptly. "Wait, were you? Why are you here? You were an amazing person. You were such a good father."

Emma hears a sharp exhale beside her. When she turns to Regina, her eyes are wide, her lips pressed together hard enough that it looks like it hurts. She looks younger than Emma has ever seen her look. The man takes a step toward her, and Regina immediately steps back. Instinctively, Emma moves between them. Her ruined heels brush the magazine lying crumpled on the floor.

"It's okay, Emma," Snow tells her. "This is your grandfather."

"Oh," Emma replies, and then the pieces click together. Snow's father. Regina's husband. Emma doesn't know much about that time in her life, but she knows that Regina was unhappy and that Snow thinks—or at least used to think—that she killed the man.

"It's because of what I did to you," Leopold calls past her. "That's why I'm here. I realize now that it was wrong."

Regina folds her arms, her face twisting into a scowl harder than she has ever directed at Emma. "It's a little late for that."

"I know. But I wanted you to hear it, all the same." Leopold wraps his arm around Snow's shoulder and shifts his gaze to Emma. "Look at you. You're grown. You have a daughter."

"Yes." Snow smiles, obviously relieved by the change of topic. She surges forward and takes Emma's hand between her own. "This is Emma. Don't worry about the age thing. It's a long story. Emma, my father, King Leopold."

"Yeah, hi." Emma rocks back and forth and runs her palms up and down her pants. She can hear Regina tapping her foot behind her, and she decides it might be best to get them out quickly. "Do you sell umbrellas here?"

Leopold shakes his head. "There's no use. If you go outside, you're going to get wet. We're all just used to it."

He approaches Emma, and she can hear Regina take another step back. He bends down and picks up the magazine at Emma's feet. He chuckles. "This is one of the better ones. The paintings are so vibrant. I wish I could have commissioned this artist for the palace. They look like real people."

"They're photographs," Snow replies stiffly, her brows pinched together. "How can you have a favorite? How can you even read this?"

"Oh, I've been here a long time," Leopold answers. "I've grown used to them. What do you see when you look at it?"

"What do I see?" Snow asks.

"When I first got here, I thought everyone saw the same thing I did," Leopold tells them. "To me, these magazines all expose scandal."

"Scandal?" Snow frowns at him.

"Yes, on the cover of every one of these magazines," Leopold explains. "See, this one says, _King Disgraced, Mistresses Come Forward About Blacksmith Fetish_. And there I am, right on the front cover. I used to think that was what everybody saw, and then I was having a chat with Milah from the supply shop down the lane and she mentioned the article on something called Rohypnol in an issue that I knew was about the most destructive wars caused by jilted lovers." He holds the magazine up to Snow. "Our punishments are custom-made for us."

"Oh." Snow takes the magazine and studies it. Then she looks at Emma and Regina. "So the two of you don't see _Five Great Ways to Cheat on Your Spouse Without Getting Caught?_ "

"No." Regina answers sharply. Emma is too relieved to respond.

Leopold claps Snow on the shoulder. "Infidelity! That's a new one. Of course, the rest of us are all here for a reason. It's not _being_ lustful that scares us."

"What is this?" Regina demands. It is only the third time she has spoken since Leopold arrived. Her voice has lost the heat of anger. It's icy now, deadly. "Why are we seeing these things?"

"We're all here for the same reason," Leopold explains. "We led lustful lives, and now it's being turned on us. Used to scare us."

"And what scares you is being scandalized?" Regina folds her arms and shakes her head. "Unbelievable."

"I know it might seem selfish." Leopold says. He sighs, summons an unconvincing smile, and turns back to Snow. "It feels that way next to what other people see. For Milah, I gather from the conversations we've had that it's something she saw, perhaps something she narrowly avoided. For me, it's only about being exposed for the things I've done. Things that were perfectly within my control, that put me here in the first place. Her punishment seems worse than mine. Worse than anything she did. But I guess this wouldn't be the underworld if things were fair."

Snow furrows her brow. "So what you see isn't necessarily the reason you're here? It's just something that scares you?"

Leopold nods. "It's not the guilt that's the torment. We all know why we're here. That's punishment enough. It's the fear." He shakes his head, as if to clear it, and changes the subject. "So you're passing through? I'd ask how you plan on getting out of here, but I'm not sure I want to know. If the three of you are looking for somewhere to get out of the storm for the evening, I live in a very large, empty house, right over that way."

Emma sees the horrified look on Regina's face and thinks that it will be a cold day in hell before she agrees to that, and then she remembers where they are and how she is shivering and realizes that no, not even then.

Snow seems to have the same idea as Emma. She takes one glance at Regina and answers, "It's been so, so good to see you, Father, but I think we might look for somewhere else."

Regina sighs, deflates. "No, you two can go. I'll just find somewhere else to sleep. I got to have my reunion with Daniel. Who am I to tell you you can't have yours with your father. Especially since I was the one who killed him."

Snow's finger snaps toward Regina. "I knew it was you!"

Regina raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "I thought it was fairly obvious."

"How about this?" Leopold tries again. "I have a room above the shop. I'd love for you to stay there, Regina. It's the least I can do."

A long, silent moment passes before Regina grumbles, "Yes, I suppose that would be acceptable."

"No," Emma shakes her head. "I'm not going to just leave you alone." _Not so soon after almost losing you_. Emma cannot abandon her to have a family dinner with her grandfather when her mistakes put Regina here in the first place. This isn't a vacation. "I'll stay here too."

"Emma, are you sure?" Snow asks.

"Yes, Emma, are you sure?" Regina repeats.

Emma nods. "Yep, I'm positive."

"There's only one bed up there. No couches or anything," Leopold informs her. "Will that be okay?"

Emma grimaces. _Of course_. 

She glances over at Regina, who shrugs. It'll be okay, she tells herself. Friends share beds all the time. "We'll make it work."

The room is barely large enough for the amount of furniture in it. There's a door wedged between the chest of drawers and the nightstand that Emma assumes leads to a proportionally tiny bathroom. It reminds her of her room in the foster home she ran away from when she was thirteen, after spending only three days with the woman and her five cats.

"Well, isn't this cozy," Regina comments dryly. She leans over and pulls a lacy salmon curtain away from the window. Outside, Emma can see herself on a billboard pressing her lips to another woman's neck. "And what a view."

Beat of the rain against the roof like a constant stream of marbles falling against a wood floor. All around them, the wind howls. "This room feels like it might blow right off the top of the convenience store," Emma mutters, dropping onto the mattress. It groans under her weight.

"That would certainly be exciting," Regina replies. "Maybe if it did, we would be able to convince your mother to just leave now." She pulls the curtain back over the window and releases a shudder Emma assumes she was not supposed to notice. "One night here is too long."

"It will probably only get worse from here," Emma points out, though she still cannot imagine how. This level of the underworld whispers to her, right into her soul. She can feel it trying to tell her something. Something that can't be true because she was in love with Killian. She was so in love with him, she was willing to risk everything she cared about.

But there it is again. Everything she cares about. In the form of the woman standing beside her. Because she's your friend, she tells herself. She's your best friend, your son's other mother. It's normal to care about her. You're supposed to.

 _But not like this_ , a sneaking voice in the back of her head whispers.

Emma stands abruptly, and Regina's forehead creases. "I'm going to get some food from downstairs for dinner," she announces. "Do you want anything specific?"

"I don't imagine they have fresh salads or roast beef dinners down there." Regina sighs. "Chocolate covered pretzels, I suppose. If you can find them."

"Got it." Emma rushes from the room and hurries down the creaky stairs. Deciding to stay with Regina might have been a mistake, she realizes now, even if she doesn't want to leave her by herself to stay in Leopold's cushy house. But she can't leave now. It would look suspicious and it might hurt Regina more than if she had never volunteered to stay in the first place. Emma can picture exactly the look on Regina's face as she watched her leave. No, it's not an option.

She absorbs herself in selecting snacks. A bag of Cheetos, a handful of Ho-hos, two packages of M&Ms, a bag of Chex Mix, some beef jerky, two bottles of pop, and Regina's chocolate covered pretzels.

When she drops the food on the bed, however, Regina raises an eyebrow at her. "This is dinner?"

"Yeah," Emma answers. "See? It's got dairy and wheat and meat. That's half the food groups."

Regina groans. "Emma, Cheetos do not count as dairy."

"Uhh, I was actually talking about the Ho-hos," Emma replies. "They have cream in the middle. I looked for a microwave lasagna in the freezer section, but they didn't have one, and then I realized we don't have a microwave anyway. But this will be fine. I had a lot of meals worse than this when I was a bounty hunter."

"That's you, dear," Regina replies. "Some of us are not content filling our bodies with junk food that will clog our arteries and kill us by our fiftieth birthdays."

"No wonder Henry came to find me. Living with you sounds like pretty much the opposite of fun." But she backtracks at the look on Regina's face. "That was a joke. Sorry, I thought it had been long enough…" She looks away from Regina. She drops onto the bed and rips open the bag of Cheetos, content to pretend she did not just say what she said and hoping Regina will do the same. "Come on. Live a little."

She crawls to the other side of the bed to fiddle with the dials on the battered old television on top of the chest of drawers. The screen hums to life, and then two grainy, unsaturated women are writhing and moaning right before Emma's eyes.

"Turn it off," Regina snaps. Emma's hand is already halfway back to the dial.

"Oh course." She hangs her head and retreats across the bed. "It's porn."

"What were you expecting?" Regina sits down on the edge of the mattress and picks up the package of pretzels. "Remember where we are."

"I don't know." Emma shrugs. "Maybe Law & Order or Black Beauty or something? That's what used to always be on in the motels Neal and I stayed at." She hesitates. "So you saw porn too?"

"Yes," Regina answers. "Probably not the same kind you saw. We're not talking about this."

Emma holds up her free hand to indicate acceptance as she gnaws on a piece of jerky.

They finish off the M&Ms, the pretzels, and the Chex Mix, and Emma piles the rest of the food on the chair on top of Regina's coat so they can eat it for breakfast tomorrow, while Regina hunts for spare clothes.

"My coat is completely soaked through," she mutters to herself as she pulls open the top drawer of the chest of drawers and nearly falls back onto the bed from the lack of space. " _Weatherproof_."

"I think I saw a coat closet at the top of the stairs." Emma stands up and shuffles around Regina to reach the doorway. She steps back into the hall and spots the other door. When she opens it, however, she doesn't find coats. She finds gowns of all different colors trimmed with ornate ribbons or decorated with expensive jewels.

Emma's mouth is still agape when the door slams shut in front of her. She turns her head, and Regina is standing beside her, her lips drawn into a firm line.

"What were those?" Emma asks.

"Those were my gowns," Regina explains. "From when I was Queen. Before I was the Evil Queen."

"Why does he have them here?" Emma wonders.

"I couldn't say," Regina answers. Her mouth barely moves when she speaks. "Maybe they were already here when he showed up. Maybe he managed to track them down somehow. It doesn't matter. They're not what we're looking for. Though perhaps if your mother was here, she could call on some woodland creatures to help her turn them into raincoats."

Regina turns on her heel and walks back into the bedroom. Emma follows her. She could tease her about them, but she call tell that's a bad idea. She can still feel pangs of guilt deep in her chest over that stupid joke about Henry. "I have another idea. There should be some extra blankets around here somewhere."

She checks every drawer in the chest of drawers and then she opens the chest at the end of the bed. "Bingo."

She pulls out a thick, pink, floral quilt and hands it off to Regina. Then she grabs a blue sheet with tiny sailboats on it for herself. "Take off your clothes."

"That's very forward of you, Miss Swan. I usually expect my suitors to at least take me out to an expensive dinner first."

"No, I—" Emma stammers. She can feel the blood rushing to her face. "That's not what I—I thought we could hang them…" But Regina is bracing herself against the wall, her body shaking with laughter.

"It was a joke, Emma. Relax." She is already removing her hose. Emma turns around to unbutton her own stiff, black shirt. She sorely wishes she'd chosen more practical clothing for her Dark One costume.

They hang their clothes over the shower curtain, and Emma fishes around in the cupboard below the sink until she finds a hair dryer. "Motels always have them," she proclaims as she holds up in victory a bright orange contraption that looks like it has been sitting here unused since before she was born. She stands up, clutching the sheet around her body. "We can use this to dry our clothes."

Regina is skeptical. "How long with that take?"

"A while," Emma answers. "You might want to get the snacks. Or we can go in shifts. Neal and I had to do this a couple of times when we didn't have money for a laundromat. We usually switched off every fifteen minutes."

Regina groans. Her hair catches on the rough fabric of the quilt draped over her shoulders. "This is ridiculous. I can't believe you lived like this."

"Yeah, because I'm the picture of put-togetherness ." She comments as she plugs in the hair dryer and switches it on. "I can't see the clock from in here. You'll have to let me know when it's your turn."

* * *

_Emma is kissing a woman. Her lips are soft and her hair is sleek in Emma's hands. It feels different from kissing Hook or Neal or Walsh or that kid, Darren, when she was fifteen. She doesn't feel trapped and breakable in her partner's arms, and she doesn't feel hard as a rock against Emma. They fit together, and they give and take from each other instead of Emma giving and giving and giving. It's amazing._

_As they pull apart to reposition, she sees that it's Lily. Her hands roam over Emma's neck and pull her back into the kiss. She can feel fingers playing with the hair at the base of her skull and running up along her jaw. She removes her own hands from Lily's hair and rests them on her waist. She toys with the hem of Lily's shirt for a moment before her fingers slip under it, brush against the soft skin of her stomach._

_And then Lily pulls away, her lip upturned in a sneer. "What are you doing?"_

_"I was kissing you," Emma protests. "I thought you liked it."_

_"Liked it?" Lily's scoffs. "We were practicing for boys, Emma. We weren't supposed to like it with each other. What, are you a lesbian or something?"_

_"No, I'm not," Emma protests. "I'm like you. I'm normal."_

_The door of the room creaks open, and Snow enters. "Who's a lesbian?" she asks. Her brows knit together. Her mouth is twisted into a deep frown. David follows her into the room, and then Regina, and then Henry and Killian, until she and Lily are surrounded by what looks like the entire town of Storybrooke, and even a few vaguely familiar faces from the Enchanted Forest._

_"What are you trying to do to my daughter?" Maleficent shrieks. "She's not like you."_

_"Emma, your father and I are so disappointed in you." Snow's frown deepens. "I thought we got all the darkness out of you, but I guess we were wrong."_

_"How could you do this, Mom?" The betrayal in Henry's voice brings tears to Emma's eyes. "I can't believe I trusted you. I never should have found you in Boston. I wish I'd never even met you."_

_"I didn't do anything," Emma repeats, pressing her fists to her forehead. "We were practicing for boys. Like Lily said. I promise. I'm normal. I won't do it again. I promise I'm normal."_

_"You were supposed to be the savior," Killian sneers. "It turns out you're just another cheap whore. I can't believe I nearly wasted my life on you."_

_"I thought you loved me, Emma," Neal's voice floats through her head as she squeezes her eyes shut. "Was all of that just a lie? Did I mean anything to you?"_

_"Of course you did," Emma sobs._

_"Emma, open your eyes. Look at me." If it had been anyone else, Emma would not have listened, but Regina makes her want to. Regina hasn't yet rejected her. If only Regina accepts her, Emma thinks she might be able to live with herself._

_She opens her eyes and snaps her head up, but Regina is not smiling at her the way Emma hoped she would be. Her nose is wrinkled and her teeth are bared._

_"You disgust me."_

Emma snaps upright as she wakes up. Her body is drenched in a cold sweat and her legs are tangled in the sheets. Her cheeks are wet.

The wind is rocking the building around them. Emma can hear the creaks and groans of the wood. Beside her, Regina is breathing slow and deep. She hasn't woken up.

Emma drops back against the pillow, relieved. This was not the first nightmare of its kind, but it has been years. She thought she had put it behind her with Neal, with Walsh, with Killian. It was easy to push those feelings away when she was younger and she could simply tell herself she was mistaking them for something else, when there was no woman.

Tears prickle in the corners of her eyes. She rolls over and buries her face in her pillow. The material will chafe against her cheeks, she can already tell, but she doesn't much care. She needs to get this out of her system, so she can wake up tomorrow morning and pretend that nothing happened. Her shoulders heave with hard sobs. Her entire body shakes. She gasps for breath, but she can't seem to take in any air.

"Emma?"

A hand comes to rest on her back.

"Emma, what's going on?" Regina's voice is still rough with sleep, but she sounds alert, alarmed.

"It's nothing. I'm fine," Emma tries to snap, but her voice breaks on the second word. She just wants Regina to roll over and go back to sleep, to pretend she doesn't hear her. Regina will expect an explanation, and Emma doesn't know what she will tell her.

The mattress creaks, and the dip from Regina's weight disappears. A second later, she can hear the sink running in the bathroom. The water shuts off, and then the hand returns to her back as Regina kneels down at the side of the bed.

"Emma, roll over," she says. "Look at me."

 _Look at me_ , the Regina from her dream echoes in her mind. She shakes her head. "Just go back to sleep. _Please_."

"Is this about the things we're seeing down here?" Regina guesses. Emma is silent, but her sharp intake of breath must be the confirmation Regina is looking for. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

Regina strokes her hair. Her voice is soft and soothing, practiced from years of calming Henry when he was a young child. It still surprises Emma to see the evidence of Regina's time raising him, especially after spending so long thinking of her exclusively as the Evil Queen. She knows their lives didn't start when she entered the picture, but she has never given much thought to them existing all those years between Henry's birth and her twenty-eighth birthday. She realizes now how painful it must have been when Henry turned on Regina, when he insisted that Emma was his real mother.

"What if I tell you about what I see?" Regina tries again. "Would that help?"

Emma turns her head to peak out at her over the pillow.

"There we go." Regina smiles at her. Emma can see in her eyes how much she cares, but that only makes her cry harder. Regina dabs at her exposed cheek with the warm washcloth. "Make room." She pushes Emma's legs over and perches on the side of the mattress. Emma rolls over on her back and continues to watch her, as Regina runs the washcloth down the side of her face.

"You know that I was married to your grandfather against my will," Regina begins. She focuses her gaze on the washcloth and does not meet Emma's eyes. "An arranged marriage that I never would have agreed to, if I'd been consulted."

"I figured," Emma answers. Her throat feels raw from crying, and her voice is raspy.

"I was engaged at seventeen. I was eighteen by my wedding day," she continues. "The King… Leopold… was in his fifties. He wasn't a particularly demanding husband. Most of what he wanted was a mother for his daughter and a Queen to watch attentively as he made speeches at state functions. He didn't pay much attention to me. In fact, most of the time, it was easy to forget we were even married." She pauses and breathes a deep sigh. Emma wants to reach out and touch her, but she knows she can't.

"But we _were_ married and there were still certain _duties_ ," Regina wrinkles her nose like she did in the dream, and Emma winces, "that I was expected to fulfill. Even if he wasn't interested in me the vast majority of the time." Regina withdraws the washcloth and shifts her eyes to the floor. "That was the worst thing about living there. I could have lived with it if I had just been a glorified nanny for Snow White, if I hadn't had to be a wife as well."

Emma places a hand on Regina's forearm, but quickly withdraws it. "I'm sorry."

"Anyway, that's what I see. Those memories," Regina finishes. She stands abruptly and goes into the bathroom to toss the washcloth into the sink hard enough that Emma can hear it splat against the ceramic. When she returns, she climbs back into her side of the bed and rolls onto her side facing Emma. "Do you feel like talking about it now?"

Emma rolls away from her. "I can't."

"Oh, come on," Regina pokes her in the ribs. "I told you mine."

"It's different," Emma insists. "I can't."

There is a moment of loaded silence where Emma listens to the wind scream around them and waits for Regina to argue further, but finally, she simply says, "Alright, suit yourself. But Emma, if you ever need to talk about anything, I'm here. And I'm in no position to judge."

It takes a long time for Regina to fall back asleep. Emma doesn't roll back over until she hears her breathing slow. Regina looks so much younger when she is asleep. The worried crease in her forehead is absent.

Emma wants to tell her. She's never wanted to talk about her feelings before, but she _wants_ to talk to Regina. She just can't risk losing her family over this.

* * *

Emma wakes up before Regina does. Her eyes feel dry and crusty and her cheeks are still raw from crying. She pulls herself out of bed and wipes some dried drool off her cheek as she stumbles toward the bathroom.

Her hair is tangled and looks scraggly from the rain. She knows that going out again today will ruin anything she does, but she decides to take a shower anyway. She hasn't had one since before she walked into the lake four days ago, and there's no telling when her next opportunity will be. Besides, she always feels grimy after she cries.

Taking a shower has never fixed any of Emma's problems, other than being dirty, but she cannot think of a purer place to suffer. She works her hands through her hair with some of the long-expired shampoo she found under the sink and thinks about her dream, about the girls in the magazine, about Regina's hand on her back. There is no denying it.

And now that she can't deny it, now that she actually has to think about it, pieces of her life start to snap into place. The way Killian's arm always felt suffocating around her shoulders, how her favorite thing about Walsh was how much he'd felt like a close friend until he asked her to marry him, how she is perpetually annoyed with Robin's existence, despite his never having done anything to her, the way she keeps trying to sacrifice herself for Regina because she can no longer imagine a life without her in it. She presses her forehead against the tile wall of the shower and clenches her teeth.

In the shower, she can pretend she isn't crying. She can pretend she is just going to stand here under the running water forever and never have to deal with anything. When she was a teenager, she used to think of her future as a dark tunnel so long she couldn't even see the light at the end. Emma has never known how to be happy, but two months ago, before Zelena and the Dark One curse, she thinks she was as close as she's ever been. Now she is back in the dark tunnel. Only this time she is not a teenager. This time she wonders whether the light she can't see is even there.

"Emma!" she hears a call from outside that bathroom. "Are you planning on coming out while there's still some hot water left, or are you going to stay in there until you've drained the lake?"

The temperature of the water is already beginning to fall. It never occurred to Emma, though it now seems obvious, that Regina would want to shower too.

She steps over the lip of the tub and wraps a towel around her body. When she opens the bathroom door, Regina is sitting on the bed with her arms crossed, looking annoyed. "You had better be the cleanest you've ever been."

"Sorry," Emma mutters. Her voice is still scratchy, and Regina's expression immediately loses some of its edge.

"How are you feeling?"

Emma shrugs as she picks her jacket off the floor. "Right now I'm feeling like I should have brought a change of clothes."

Regina closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Emma has seen her do this with Henry before, when he was trying her patience. "Emma…"

"I don't want to talk about it," she interrupts. "I'm fine."

"You're no better a liar than our son," Regina shakes her head. Emma can tell she is thinking about pressing, but then she sighs and shakes her head. "How is Henry?"

"I wondered why it was taking you so long to ask," Emma answers, relieved to shift to a topic that doesn't make her feel so sick to her stomach. "He was having a hard time when I left. He was barely talking to me. He's not ready to lose you."

"He's not ready to lose either of us." Regina shakes her head. "I can't believe you did this. Of all the reckless, impulsive things. I assumed he wasn't doing well, for the two of you to come down here like this. That's why I didn't ask sooner. I've been trying to prepare myself for the answer."

Emma reaches for her but then thinks better of it and balls her hand into a fist. "You know that's not the only reason I'm—we're… here."

Regina ignores her. "It made me feel better, when I woke up down here, knowing he was with family. I don't know what would have happened if I'd died during the curse. Graham maybe. They always got along."

"I'm sure he would have been okay," Emma assures her. "No one blamed him for… well, for you."

"How sweet of you to say." Regina's voice drips with sarcasm. Then she looks at Emma, and the bitterness her in expression is gone. "I appreciate your coming to get me. I wasn't ready to lose him either. Or the rest of you idiots, I suppose."

"I wasn't just going to leave you down here when it was my fault you died in the first place," Emma answers. "I screwed with fate. There were never meant to be two Dark Ones, and you're the one who paid."

Regina chuckles. "Funny how I'm always paying for your mistakes."

Emma scoffs. "Name one other time."

There is a smile one Regina's lips now, but before she can respond, there is a knock at the door. Regina takes her towel and disappears into the bathroom to get in the shower before Snow can pull her away without one.

Snow's clothes are soak through and her hair looks like she tried to style it with a leaf blower. "Good morning," she chirps. Her voice is bright, but her eyes look as tired as Emma feels. "Are you ready to go?"

"As soon as Regina's out," Emma answers. She can hear sound of water hitting tile behind the bathroom door.

"I can't wait to put this place behind us." Snow glances sidelong at the billboard outside the window. Emma has kept her back steadfastly turned to it all morning.

Emma agrees, but she doesn't want to express that sentiment. She doesn't want to do anything that might prompt Snow to ask her what she sees. Snow isn't like Regina. She doesn't always know when to stop.

"That bad, huh?" she asks instead.

"You know how they say never meet your heroes?" Snow asks. She drops onto the bed, her arms crossed over her chest. "I guess I spent so much time idolizing my father after his death that it was bound to be a letdown if I ever saw him again."

Emma cocks her head to the side. "He's not what you remembered?"

"He's exactly what I remembered," Snow explains. "It's just that… it turns out there was a lot more going on than I realized."

"I think that's what happens when you grow up," Emma answers. At least that's what happened to her. She remembers that girl, Kimmy, from one of the foster homes she was in when she was six, who got arrested trying to shoplift two bottles of nail polish and a Diet Coke from a corner store, who slept with guys she didn't like. Emma remembers thinking she would never be like that.

"Maybe that's the silver lining of you not knowing your father and I as a child," Snow adds. "We were never you're childhood heroes so we'll never disappoint you."

"I used to love Mulan when I was younger, and she didn't disappoint me," Emma jokes, but Snow does not laugh. "I have a hard time imagining that," Emma assures her. Her standards are pretty low, but she thinks she has to be more of a disappointment to Snow and David than they could ever be to her. How can she not be, when they went out of their way to make sure she was devoid of any darkness, and here she is as the Dark One?

"Is Leopold going to take us to the barrier?" she asks.

"What?" Snow asks absently. "Oh, no, he won't go near it, but he said he could point us in the right direction. He's downstairs. He thought it would be better if he didn't come up here."

Emma nods. "Good thinking."

Snow inhales through her teeth. "I feel like I need to give Regina a hug when she gets out of the shower."


End file.
